The last week and a new challenge in a literature review. By now all of us have probably written more than they have in a long time. I know that's the case for me. Having been out of school mode for a number of years, the last two terms here at Brandman have been a bit taxing. But taxing in a wholly good and useful way. The assignments in all of my classes thus far have been challenging. And challenging in a way that I like. I have always liked writing as form of communication. This class in particular has helped me get more out my writing in more ways than I had ever anticipated. Above all, it has forced me to sort of think on my feet. By that I mean I have to read a large amount of data and then quickly come to a conclusion about whether or not what I read was useful for my particular purpose. Secondly, I have then had to make choices in what was worth reading to go and synthesize what parts of it I was going to use in writing about it. And that act of taking the various parts and committing them to paper ( or silicon as is more appropriate) and then, making sure I had where that come from and giving the proper credit has been quite the mental exercise.
I'll close by saying that the literature was a bit of a tough exercise for a couple of reasons. I wanted to avoid the blandness of the annotated bibliography and I also didn't want to get into writing the same paper I had already written for another class. The breakthrough for me came when I realized that I was able to to really consider my sources as just that and talk about what I gleaned from them without trying to advance my own viewpoint. Once I realized I could do that separation, the assignment flowed more easily. As a last word, I'd like to thank Kathleen for her insight and extreme helpfulness in navigating the world of citations and the intricacies of the Leatherby Library.
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